Study On The Reliance Interest In Contract Law

With the development of several generations of scholars, legislators and judges,the theoretical research and judicial practice of reliance interest has acquireremarkable harvest in foreign countries. Whether Culpa in contrahendo in civil lawsystem, or “promissory estoppel” in Anglo-American legal system has respectivelydeveloped and proved in its own social context and legal system. However, thebeginning of reliance interests research is relatively late in our country. Moreover, ourcountry is lack of legal practice in respect of reliance interests. So the regulations inour country, especially in Contract Law, is relatively ambiguous. Contract Law hasnot expressly admit the essence of reliance interests, but just substantially protect thereliance interest to some extent. From now on, there are no regulations in ContractLaw which explain the meaning of reliance interest, the tatbestand of damages ofreliance interest, the extent of damages of reliance interest or its limitations, themethod of calculating damages of reliance interest and so on. These drawbacks lead tothe dependence of judge’s personal judge in place of pursuant to laws, which cannotmake sure to judge in the same standard. It is just lacking of research and judicialpractices which cause these drawbacks. Therefore, I write the paper, hope to studyresearch of reliance interest in foreign countries, to understand and analyze thehistory of reliance interest, and to give some my advices of reliance interest in ourContract Law.The paper has four parts, In the first part, because reliance interest is the basis of the study and the core ofthe paper, I study the concept of reliance interest firstly. In the way of tracing thehistory of reliance interest, I understand how and why the regulations which protectreliance interest entered into,and the fuction of reliance interest and its regulations.By comparing and analyzing the different theories of defining reliance interest, I giveyou my definition of reliance interest. In the last of this part, I differ reliance interestfrom some other interests,including exepectation interest and restitution interest.In the second part, I study the protection of reliance interest. Firstly,I understandthe protection of reliance interest includes positive protection and negative protection.Then I study the applicable regulations of protecting reliance interest, including howto choose between positive protection and negative protection, the regulation ofdamages of reliance interest, the extent of damages of reliance interest and itslimitations, cost and expense of reliance interest, the tatbestand of damages of relianceinterest and so on.In the third part, firstly I study the fact of our Contract Law about protectingreliance interest. Then I point out some drawbacks of the law. In the last, I make useof the paper’s research to our law to give some my advice of how to prove our law.